Oculus "won't use hardware checks as part of DRM on PC in the future"

A couple of months ago some savvy redditor released a hack so that people could play Oculus exclusives on Vive, but it wasn't long before Oculus plugged it by adding DRM to the headset. They've just reverted that decision in a new patch.

When the DRM was first released, the redditor just found another workaround for Revive - the hack that allowed people to play Oculus exclusives elsewhere - but it had the unhappy consequence of making piracy easier.

This is why Oculus were forced to remove the DRM. Though it could could back in some other form, Oculus say they won't use hardware checks for this purpose in the future.

We reached out to Oculus for comment and a spokesperson said: "We continually revise our entitlement and anti-piracy systems, and in the June update we've removed the check for Rift hardware from the entitlement check. We won't use hardware checks as part of DRM on PC in the future.

"We believe protecting developer content is critical to the long-term success of the VR industry, and we’ll continue taking steps in the future to ensure that VR developers can keep investing in ground-breaking new VR content."

This step has caused the creator of Revive to revert to the original version - the one that lets players play exlcusives on other headsets without opening the door for pirates.

Exclusives are never a good thing for anyone but the person who owns the exclusives and the money they'll make. Gabe Newell said as much, which is why SteamVR won't have exclusives.

Luckey's a schemer and a liar. He's always been that way. I mean, the Facebook sellout was hardly the first time he'd contradicted reality, and it wasn't the last. Exclusives aren't healthy for an open platform like the PC. They're toxic, cancerous, and pretty much anathema. That's why I don't support Origin, either. I haven't played an EA game in forever.

Ubisoft allow their games to be sold on different storefronts, so I'm still okay with Uplay. Launchers and DRM aren't so much my issue as the freedom of where the consumer can choose to buy from. I hate walled gardens reducing the choices available to the consumers, especially since it invites the horrors of a closed platform. I mean, compare Doom '16's horrible modding to the original Doom and Quake, or even pretty much every Valve game.

I don't want the PC to turn into a mobile device or console. Not that they are bad, but that closed platforms and walled gardens aren't good for anyone except for fatcats seeking to line their pockets. It's the most important thing about the PC to defend.

And a lot of video game developers on PC want this, too. Look at how many of them are supporting Vulkan just to get away from Microsoft's monopolistic craziness with DirectX.

This thing with open versus closed is the battle that's constantly being fought on the PC. And how many rights that you, as a consumer and a PC user, actually have. Such as what you're allowed to do with your own computer and the things on it. There are losses of power which are acceptable because people have to make their money, but most others are just a sham, a way to be extra greedy at our expense.

That's why Oculus won't ever be the kit for me. Liar Luckey says this now, but six months down the road he's going to change his mind and have DRM lock out other headsets again. He's probably just using this to generate goodwill whilst internally developing better DRM.

I'm picking OSVR. A sane price, and an open design ethos that I support. That's my headset. I never thought that a Razer product would be the standard to follow for everyone else, but there you go...